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Mrs. B.

Thursday, February 28, 2008

Our altar is placed on the kitchen's marble case. We moved to this new house some months ago, and I haven't found yet a better place to put it, and sincerely, I think that the kitchen is one of the best places for it to stay. I love my little kitchen and the shelf where the altar is placed is perfect in size for me, since I don't have many objects over it. Kitchens are very powerful places for witches, and I spend a good time over there preparing goodies for my two men. My son loves helping me when I'm cooking, so it's a warm and cosy room to be, with good vibrations. There's this amazing site about magickal kitchens that I can't take my eyes off since I learned about it!

Usually my altar is very simple and plain, like the first photo above. When we're celebrating sabbaths, I add some colored lining and images, according to the celebrations, and Lucas is always adding something, like little rocks and dried leaves he finds in his walks - the two wooden wands on the right of te photos was chosen by him. In Ostara he dyed some boiled eggs to decorate it, and in Beltane he chose the images to put on the wall (I think I said before, we follow the Southern Hemisphere Wheel of the Year, so Ostara was held in September, and Beltane, in October - now we're waiting for Mabon to arrive).

As long as Lucas doesn't mess up with the objects, I let him touch everything that's displayed - he's always very respectful - only being careful when the candles are lit, of course. He loves changing the Goddess water every morning, and he often spend some seconds in front of it many times of the day, just watching, as he says. For him it's part of our lives, because he's used to it since he was a little baby. And that's exactly how I wanted it to be.

Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Some time ago, Lucas colored this beautiful Goddess Gaia from the Dancing Goddess Dolls. While he was making his traditional rainbow, coloring each part with a different crayon (he's on a rich multicolor phase now), I lightly introduced him to the Gaia Theory - the one where the planet Earth is not simply an inanimate mass sheltering living beings, but itself is alive, reacting and constantly self-regulating along its existence to keep life levels in its surface and inside of it. As this theory has always been very natural and obvious to me - sometimes I can feel it "breath"! -, I wanted to know his reaction. He not only agreed with me but also felt it very natural, because in his little mind, the Earth where he lives pulses alive and happy just like him, simple like that. One more reason to keep talking and teaching about preservation and respect for every creature. It won't be for lack of teaching and example from us that Lucas will grow up without a notion about respect and reverence for everything around him.

There's a page at Internet about James Lovelock, the scientist who formulated this wonderful theory. This guy shaked Science in the year I was born, 1969, when talking for the first time about the Earth as something alive and non-passive. He was invited by NASA years later to contribute in the analysis about the possibility of life in Mars, based in his studies. The man is respected! I think it worths taking a look at it, it's food for thought...

Tuesday, February 26, 2008

At home, reading is so natural, necessary and basic as breathing. We have this big white bookcase at the living room full of books we got along the years, and it's my fav furniture. There's a whole section with magickal books, and Lucas once in a while picks one up to see the images and to ask bout what's written. He's got his own bookcase, with a growing collection of kid's books and comics. I try to read something for him everyday, from Brazilian comics to Asterix (he loves it, and so do I!). I always let him grab our books since he started crawling, only putting out of his reach the ones I didn't want to get crunched or drooled up, or eventually ripped.

So last weekend we bought some new books, including the three first Harry Potter (I know, I know... Ididn't have them yet, though we watched the movies...). Lucas immediately begged me to read the first one before sleeping. And there I went, curling myself up in his little bed, with my little witch by my side, all happy. The story, for those who haven't read it yet, does not have exactly a happy narrative, but Lucas was all attention, and complained when I stopped after the first chapter. He simply loved it, so since last Saturday, this is our new ritual, reading Harry Potter before praying for Mama Goddess and sleeping. We're at chapter five tonight, and he can hardly wait to se what happens next. If I had any doubt about he would inherit our passion for literature, maybe I can feel relieved now :)

Monday, February 25, 2008

Lucas has always been very curious about life and death. Specially death. He got impressed when his grandpa's dog, Rambo, died last year, and would talk about it at every opportunity. He also talks abut my father, the grandpa he never met, who died in 2001. Always in a light way, but always very piercing in his questions. I answer him as best as I can under my beliefs, and in general he accepts it very well. I make sure to tell him that death is natural part in the cycle of life, when our spirit then is free from our bodies to fly to another dimension, where they will proceed his development. I knew he got it when he said "oh, it's like a new game's phase". "Yes!" I said, "kind of, phase one is here, then there's phase two..." If this is how he manages to understand things, so it's ok for me.

Now my older sister is very ill, with a secondary brain cancer, and with no chances of recovery. Obviously he knows about her condition, because I often go visiting her at the hospital, and he sends her drawings - once he even sent her a dove's feather he found in our veranda. I avoid talking to my husband about her in front of him, because things are getting worse, I'm extremely shaken by it when I get home after the visits, and I don't want to give him a bad idea and make him afraid of death. But he knows I'm sad and worried, and yesterday he said she was going to die, and then said, as matter of fact, "it's ok, mom, she'll be with gradpa Delcio and he'll take care of her". That was enough to bring tears to my eyes. What a precious little boy we have at home... Somehow, unoticed, with his little questions and statements, he's the one who's preparing me to say good bye to my sis.

Friday, February 22, 2008

So it was definitely a great choice! Lucas enjoyed this new ritual much more than I thought he would. Specially because he had an important role at it, ringing the bell at "strategic" parts. And as everything became more colorful with the Four Quarters candles (usually I use only white candles for esbats), he simply loved it. I felt him more connected with the whole meaning of the ritual too. Summing up, it was a success. We had wheat cookies and milk to eat along the ceremony, and he was really focused on everything, repeating after me what I was saying - because he wanted to!

Of course, he had several questions and comments as I was performing the ritual, but anyone with kids at home knows how things are: we simply cannot have a straight esbat or sabbath, there are always interruptions and that's it. I aswer him trying not to lose the concentration, and it works well in the end. He was sorry when it was over! From now on, I'll surely keep this new celebration.

*Image: Lucas in front of our little esbat altar. The "horns" behind him are the branches of our growing sweet potato, absolutely lovely!

Thursday, February 21, 2008

Tonight we have the Full Moon, and this month I'd like to make an "upgrade" about esbats with Lucas, who call the full moon "Mama Moon". Usually our rituals are very simple and short, due to his age and respective patience for long rites. I believe that now we can try something deeper and a bit longer, so I'll perform the Esbat suggested by Wind*Dancer at her site, adjusting something here and there, and see how it works.

Lucas is always the first one to ask me to buy supplies for the feasts, and this time it was no different. So I'll get a round white candle representing the full moon and some round cookies (no time to make them myself this time) to eat after the celebration is done. I just love the Esbat, it's a sweet ritual to me, and I feel renewed by its energy every night we celebrate it.

I was so sorry that last night we couldn't see the total eclipse of the moon, because in Rio the weather was so cloudy and ugly, even after a beautiful sunny day! Last year I took my son to watch the partial eclipse by the beach, and he loved it so much, it was perfect. Now we'll wait until 2010 for a new phenomenon.

Living in a time where selfishness is the key word, and streets being treated like garbage, if we don't pay attention to our attitudes, it may become easy to follow the crowd and simply forget how dependable we are on Mother Nature to live. At home, I teach Lucas that we must respect the Earth as something sacred, so some basic steps are taken everyday not to make things worse. I know this is not going to save the world, but at least my conscience is clean and I'm not being part of its destruction.

For instance, we recycle. We have this big garbage can with partitions for each recycling group. Every empty packaging, from juice bottles to rice plastic bags, is washed and dried before being put in the can, as well as the diary newspaper we subscribe. Lucas is in charge of putting every item on its proper partition, and is all proud of doing so. There's this local ONG that every Thursday collect our stuff, and we know that we're helping them to keep people working in their company, and the material taken will be recycled into something useful again, thus not polluting as it would happen if it was simply taken by ordinary garbage collectors.

We teach him never to throw garbage away in the streets, better to keep the candy paper or the empty plastic glass of water in his hands until the next trash can - there are hundreds of them spread along the sidewalks, so I can't understand why people can behave so badly about it. I keep imaging how their houses are! I avoid as much as possible to take plastic bags from supermarkets or other shops, because I now plastic takes a hundred years to decompose, and I don't want this guilt on my back. So usually I use this cute ecobag to take my regular shoppings home.

This is my humble pagan contribution to keep this world a little better, and what makes me feel good is that I know my son is going to be a conscious and responsible man in the near future about his Mother home... I hope.

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

I follow the Old Path for almost 11 years now, and after Lucas was born, I kept my routine of celebrating Sabbaths and Esbats and performing my rituals, so for him is just natural to see our altar in our kitchen case, to have the smell of candles and incenses at home, and to see mom focused on whichever ritual I'm at the moment. For more "personal" rituals, I prefer to perform after he's asleep, because it's still a bit complicated and deep for him to understand and participate - actually there are some things he doesn't need to participate at all. But since he became a little grown up, he simply demands to be part of the sabbaths and esbats celebrations.

Thus, to help him understanding the myth of the Wheel of the Year, and to memorize the sequence of special days along the year, I took this beautiful picture from Internet (by the way, if anyone knows to whom this wheel belong, please let me know so I can credit it here!), had it plastified at a paper shop, and I put a magnet the same size behind it. Then I placed it at our fridge door, so we can follow up the changing of the sabbaths by moving the little white butterfly magnet around the wheel. It's a success at home, and Lucas now antecipates our celebrations. Guess it's a good idea for pagan moms and dads with preeschoolers!

I'm absolutely in love with this site. It's the Dancing Goddess Dolls, and it's all about cloth dolls, representing a huge list of goddesses (and gods) from several pantheons, altar cloths & wallhangings, decorative quilts, toys, everything perfectly handmade by the site's owner, Kelli Lincoln, a incredibly talented witch mama. The items are so lovely and beautiful that they are at the top of my wish list. It's worthy taking a long look! Here are some of the sweet pieces:

Lucas restarted kindergarten last week, and restarted crying when taken to the classes, as if he's readapting himself to the schoool's routine, all over again. We talk a lot with him at home, and he knows kidergarten is a good place, it's just that he doesn'twant to be away from us and from his toys. So, lately, patience is the main word for us...

In the begining of last year, together we made a little ritual to give him courage to face the new situation in his life. He drawn a sword on paper, and we consacrated it at our altar, charging it with good vibes. The sword was then placed into his rucksack's pocket, and there it stayed through all the year. Last night we renewed our ritual. Lucas remade the sword on colored paper, then we burned the old one into the cauldron, thanking it for the strenght it gave on the previous year, and we charged the new one. We replaced the new sword on his rucksack, and there it will stay during 2008, to encourage my son on his second year of kindergarten. This ritual seems to calm down my little witch, and that's what matter, after all. Actually, after some weeks, he is so well adapted that he forgets the sword is there!

Monday, February 18, 2008

Hello, everyone.I hope you follow my journey with my sweet, funny four-and-half-year-old little witch, Lucas, and how I deal with the everyday challenges motherhood brings along with the magickal side of our lives. This will be an extension of my Brazilian blog written in Portuguese. Blessed be!

*Image: Lucas before our Beltane altar last October (we follow the Southern Hemisphere's Wheel of the Year).